Public release date: 25-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kirsten Gottschalk kirsten.gottschalk@icrar.org 61-438-361-876 International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research

Researchers at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) are celebrating today after hearing that Australia will share in hosting the world's largest telescope the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). ICRAR a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia has been working towards the $2 billion SKA since its launch in 2009.

"We've been working very hard to make SKA a reality and we're glad to see the project reach this major milestone. ICRAR is looking forward to taking part in the next stage of the SKA through our expertise in Engineering, Information Technology and Astronomy," says ICRAR Director Professor Peter Quinn.

Two candidate sites have been bidding to host the SKA, one in Southern Africa and one in Australia and New Zealand, since 2005. It was announced earlier today by the International SKA Organisation that the SKA would be split between both sites.

Professor Quinn said sharing the SKA between Africa and Australia allows the project to benefit from the best of both sites, building on the substantial investment in infrastructure and expertise that already exists in both locations.

The new plan to share the SKA will see Australia's Mid West hosting two key components of the telescope a group of dishes equipped with Australian-designed multi-pixel radio cameras and the 'Aperture Array' portion, made up of innovative non-moving antennas designed to collect lower frequency radio waves from the whole sky.

This part of the SKA will be optimised to survey large portions of the sky quickly, a particular strength of Australian astronomy.

South Africa will host a complementary group of dish-shaped telescopes designed to observe smaller sections of the sky in more detail, following up on regions of interest discovered using the survey portion.

"This model for splitting the SKA closely follows the workings of other observatories around the world; often separate instruments will survey the sky and inform where another telescope should look closer," says Professor Quinn.

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Australia to share in world's largest telescope